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Weirdly, lately I've been thinking about aperture priority and auto ISO (APAI) as an ideal bird setup. This is a fix for the conventional manual and auto ISO mode (MAI).
Ideally, bird photography has very fast shutter speeds for complete sharpness. While a shot might look good with 1/2000th, it would also be fine with 1/2500th. Having a completely open aperture is also ideal in these situations to maximize shutter speed. At this point, the only remaining factor is ISO, which should ideally be raised for ETTR and no further.
With MAI, there is a risk here, that you set the shutter speed too slow and one of two things happens. One, you hit base ISO and overexpose. Two, something very quick happens and your shutter speed isn't fast enough. The other, maybe more minor risk is that your shutter speed is too fast and you get a noisy image. To mitigate this, you must keep an eye on where your auto ISO is, and be aware of the potential for your shutter speed to be too low. You adjust shutter speed in either case.
With APAI, you set your minimum shutter speed to be quite high, like 1000, so the camera starts raising ISO at this point. In excess light you'll get more speed instead of overexposing, but when it's lacking your speed will drop without you having to adjust.
Even better though would be a layered setup like the spreadsheet in pic related. This alternates slowing shutter speed and raising ISO. Configuring such a setting would be a pain though and camera developers hate innovation so we'll never get this.
Sorry for writing too much. Does anyone else feel this way? Would help a lot in situations with very dynamic lighting I believe. Being able to focus more on framing and composition is the ideal. Obviously in lower action moments more creative use of modes is ideal.
